A bus on fire after what activists said was an attack on journalists in response to scrutiny of human rights abuses in Chechnya.
Photograph: AP

A minibus carrying journalists and human rights activists on a tour of Russia’s Northern Caucasus region has been attacked by a group of masked men as it approached Chechnya.

A number of the journalists were beaten up and their bus was set on fire, in the latest incident of violence and intimidation against those who investigate rights abuses in the region.

Two human rights activists and six journalists, including one from Sweden and one from Norway, were travelling in the minibus when it was attacked on Wednesday evening. All were injured and five were hospitalised, according to reports.

“It was awful, I thought I was going to die,” Norwegian reporter Öystein Windstad told the country’s Aftenposten newspaper. “They tried to pull us out of the bus, hitting us with batons and sharp objects, and I fought as hard as I could. I thought if they got us out of the bus, I’d be dead.”

Maria Persson Lofgren, who works for Swedish Radio, told the broadcaster the assailants accused them of being terrorists who were “killing our people”. She said she was beaten and needed 10 stitches in her thigh after she was thrown onto an iron beam by the roadside.

Dmitry Utukin, a lawyer from Committee Against Torture, said: “It seems the goal wasn’t to maim or kill people but the goal was to scare them. They said there is nothing for you to do in Chechnya, you aren’t human rights defenders but supporters of terrorists.”

Chechnya is run by Ramzan Kadyrov, a former insurgent who has rebuilt the republic with Moscow’s money after two devastating wars. Kadyrov is credited with ending the insurgency but his methods are often brutal, and critics say he has established a de facto independent fiefdom where Russian laws do not work. A high-ranking commander of one of his battalions was implicated in the murder of the opposition politician Boris Nemtsov outside the Kremlin last year.

Last month Kadyrov said he would step down from his position, but the move appears to be a gambit to force the Kremlin to ask him to stay.

Local rights activists and journalists frequently receive threats or worse, but the targeting of journalists from national publications and even foreign reporters is unusual and suggests an escalation of intimidation.

“This was a demonstration that they are all-powerful,” said Igor Kalyapin, the head of Committee Against Torture. “They were saying: ‘See we are not scared, we can do anything we want to anyone, we don’t care who you are or where you’re from. We can stop you in any place, and beat you up or kill you.’ It’s a demonstration of force.”

Kalyapin has frequently been featured on Kadyrov’s Instagram account, where the Chechen leader has accused him of working for western intelligence services or helping the Islamic insurgency. The group’s offices in Chechnya have previously been burned down.

A few hours after the attack on the bus, armed men, some in civilian clothing and some in camouflage, attacked the offices of the Joint Mobile Group, a monitoring organisation set up by Committee against Torture, in Ingushetia. None of the employees were there at the time but they monitored the attack on security cameras.

“These brazen attacks on journalists and human rights defenders show how dangerous it is to report on human rights abuses in the North Caucasus,” said Tanya Cooper, Russia researcher at Human Rights Watch.

“The authorities have made no meaningful attempt to prevent or investigate the repeated attacks in the North Caucasus on people who criticise the government.”